


*Clever title later*

by ANinjaTurtle



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Aliens, F/F, Resistance, Russia, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23914288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANinjaTurtle/pseuds/ANinjaTurtle
Summary: It's 16 years after the Black Mesa incident, Alyx Vance and her best friend Dani are the leaders of the resistance against the Combine. But feelings always seem to complicate things, not that the Combine makes them easy anyways.
Relationships: Alyx/New character
Kudos: 1





	*Clever title later*

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really nervous about posting this, so far the only person to have read it is my best friend and she doesn't even play Half-Life haha. I have a lot written in a google doc but i'm working on editing and finishing it so posting might be a bit sparatic. But I hope you like it, please leave comments and let me know!

I remember a few things from when I was a kid. Mainly little things, or at least things that seem little now. The smell of coffee shops with my parents, playing in parks, snuggling with a dog or a cat, and sometimes I remember going to school. From what Eli’s told me though, Alyx and I only went for a few months before The Fall, he’s surprised I remember it at all. But those small memories are something to fight for, something to hold on to. It’s not much but it’s something. I do have Alyx though, and Eli. Before The Fall, Eli worked closely with my parents at Black Mesa; and Alyx is his daughter, and my best friend.  
All of this was 16 years ago now, even though it seems like a lifetime. Now, Alyx and I are the leaders of the resistance. We led our first raid when I was 15 and she was 16, it didn’t go well; at least not compared to how well they generally go today. Since then we’ve gotten better, we plan more, we train more, but I think the most important thing is that we have better weapons, so they’re more effective against the alien bastards. Which, I guess I should explain.  
The Fall, or the “Black Mesa Incident,” was caused by an interdimensional portal opening at Black Mesa (sounds sciencey and fun right? Wrong.) That portal brought along with it thousands of the Combine. The Combine are the alien bastards mentioned before, they took over the Earth within seven hours of being here and they’ve stayed ever since. They kill people without reason or remorse, they biologically assimilate the people that they capture, and they’ve been trying to kill the resistance since the beginning. Compared to The Combine, we don’t have anything, but almost anytime we save people they join us, which helps some. I think the biggest thing that’s kept us alive is our stubbornness, we refuse to let The Combine take our world from us. 

*The lights blink a couple of times and then go out, making it so dark that I can’t see my own hands. She moves beside me and turns on a flashlight. She’s scared, it’s written all over her face, and I know it is on mine too. I grab her hand and pull her up, walking towards the stairs in the hall. She trips on the carpet and I help her back up. Then there are footsteps coming up the steps. She looks at me and I pull her back into the bedroom. I go to the window and push it open quickly. She starts to say something but I shake my head and push her up. Then I stand up and slide out of the window. The Combine run into the room and a couple of them shoot.*

I wake up with a jump and look around. The room is small and dark, but for Alyx and I it’s home. Her bed is a few feet away, on the opposite wall from mine. There’s a desk at the foot of her bed that’s covered in papers. Most of them are plans for raids in the future, some are drawings, and others are experiments we’re helping Eli with. For now though, I swing my feet over the side of the bed and slide my feet into my boots. Alyx rolls onto her other side but stays asleep, which is nothing new, I only get up this early because I can’t sleep anymore anyways. So, I pull my jacket on and walk out of the room. We’re in an old flat building, most people in Ravenholm stay here, it was the cleanest building when we found the place. I walk downstairs and outside, once I’m on the sidewalk I start to jog, and then I run. Every morning I do at least two miles, but if I’m up before 5 AM, like today, then I do 4 or 5. When I first started my morning runs I could hardly do a mile, but I think I was 12 or so then so I’ve had some time to get better at it.  
Just under an hour later I jog back into the flat building and up to the second floor. Back in our room Alyx is awake and she gets up with a yawn. We both drop to the floor and do push-ups. When we started this I was worse at it than running, now though we both do fifty and then lean back on our beds. “We should leave in an hour if we expect to get to that outpost today.”  
“Yup, I’ll get everyone up while you shower.”  
“Alright, make sure they eat breakfast and that they have their papers, we don’t need anyone getting pulled today.”  
She nods a reply and I get up to go shower

I walk down the street to the armory. I already have my pistol in my belt but I’m excited to try the bow that Eli built for me. It breaks down into two parts so it’s small enough to fit in a hollowed out book, and he made some special arrows to go with it. Those are at a cabin, a few miles from the outpost that we’ll be raiding today, along with the other guns and weapons we’ll need. I grab the book from the desk and slide it in my backpack as I walk down the street. Alyx is already waiting with the rest of the group at the front gate. We double check that everyone’s there, then we walk outside, the gate-guard closing it behind us.  
One of the safest things about Ravenholm is the fact that it’s at least 10 miles from the closest city, and even then it’s a fairly small city with so few Combine that it hardly matters. Today though we’re going to City 17, it’s the biggest city for 50 miles, and it’s a hub for most of the trains this side of Russia. It’s also home to hundreds of Combine though, so any of us who go through it live in fear of being caught, so far no one has, at least not for good. Most of us have been pulled at the train station for “questioning,” which is really just the Combine beating you until you answer their questions. We can’t think about that today though, the outpost we’re going for is too important to pass up, no matter what happens.  
It takes a couple of hours to walk to City 17, which is just 5 miles past the last city. It’s just starting to get foot traffic this early in the morning, most people are going to their Combine enforced jobs or taking trains to other cities. Our group starts to spread out the closer we get to the train station, that way there’s a less likely chance of any of us getting pulled.  
Alyx looks at me as we walk inside and I look at her, then at the train list on the board. We already know when and where we’re going, but it looks more normal to check. Once we “check” for our train we continue to the security checkpoint. We get through it with no problems, and we keep walking to the platform outside. Once we find the right train we get on a car that’s relatively empty, just a couple of civilians going to work. We sit beside each other on the opposite end of the car from everyone else. The train leaves City 17 at nine and it’ll get to Voronezh by 11:30. Since we have over an hour, I lean back in the seat and stretch my legs out. Alyx puts her head on my shoulder and goes to sleep. 

I shake her awake as we pull into the station at Voronezh and she looks around, “this place has gone downhill since the last time we were here.”  
“I think most places have,” I reply as we walk onto the train platform. She gives me a small laugh, “that’s true too,” she says.  
We get through the checkpoint and walk onto the street outside, others from our group are there, and some are behind us but we don’t group back up. The sidewalk takes a sharp left and continues straight in front of us, the station being in the shape of an “L” plays into that. We walk straight though, down what used to be the main street of the city. After just a couple of minutes, the buildings around us turn into trees, and we group back up as we walk. “Dani, are sure we’ve got enough people for this today?”  
“We’ve done more with less before Matt, you know that.”  
“Yeah, but this is bigger than that. This security outpost is the most important raid we’ve  
done.”  
“Which is why we picked you guys, you’re our best fighters,” Alyx says for me.  
“She’s right, just don’t stress about it,” I nod and walk through the trees. It only takes a couple of minutes to get to our cabin and to get geared up. I put my bow together and throw the quiver of new arrows over my shoulder, but I grab my sniper rifle as a backup because Matt’s right, this is bigger than anything we’ve done before. We stand around the table in the kitchen to go over the plan one more time, then we walk back outside and into the trees.


End file.
